The Universalist. [volume] (Chicago [Ill.]) 1884-1897, 1887-08-06
editorial 8rfets.
BY REV. /. NJ. ATWOOD, D. D.
Canton. N. Y.

WHAT Mayor Hewitt said to the Grand
Army committee who came to recommend
comrade for an important municipal
position, is what magistrates should re-
ply to all applications for appointment.
The fact that your candidate is Grand
Army man, said the mayor, will not weigh
with me. have position of great re-
sponsibility to fill. 1 want the best man
can get. shall not ask whether he be
Democrat or Republican, native or for
eign born, Presbyterian or Catholic. If
your candidate is the best man shall be
glad to appoint him. If he is not, the
fact that he belongs to your organization
will not weigh. When this doctrine is
preached and practiced upon by all exec
utive officers, we shall have the ideal con-
dition OF the civil service.
Such condition is not desired by
any of those intensely practical" gentle
men whose trade is politics. Mr.. Geo. e.
Seney, of Ohio, expressed for himself
and for the whole class OF active politi-
clans, their common precious faith in the
remark that they would be better satis-
fed with the Administration, "if all Re-
publicans remaining in Office were
promptly turned out and their places
filed with honest and capable Demo-
Gratis" From their point OF view a
mans chief claim to office is his politics.
| This is the most mischievous doctrine
ever proclaimed. 1t is corrupt tree; in
practice it yields the full measure Of evil
fruit.
-"Threefourths OF life" says Matthew
Arnold, "relates to conduct" This may
have seemed to some large estimate,
especially in view of the ease with which
sin is committed and the indifference
with which society regards it. But An
drew Lang finds that masterpiece in
art, poetry and fiction might be pub
lished " without exciting one hundredth
part of the interest provoked by the
charge of stealing half page" The in
ference is irresistible, that art is Of no i'm
portance at all in comparison with con-
duct. Mr.. Lang asks pertinently, "While
men have this overpowering interest in
morals, who can despair of humanity?"
The pastor of the Church of the Re-
deemer, Newark, N. j., has found it con-
venient, if not necessary, to publish pa
per, the UniUersdlist Record, once a
month, to supplement the diffusion of
sound exegesis and clarified theology
from his pulpit. Besides Interpretation
and explication, which appear to be the
chief mission of the Record, the work of
the parish, in it's various departments, is
presented with an advertisers eye to the
effect of publicity, and much other inter-
esting and useful matter is printed. The
pastor of the Church of Our Father,
Brooklyn, also publishes paper, named
| Our Ambassador. It's mission seems to
be more general, the editor having no
particular novelties, theological or exc
getical, to air.
The labor and expense Of publishing
even small paper, no oftener than once
a month, is SO considerable, when added
to the care of a large parish, that if our
able and brilliant brethren, the editors,
keep up the issue OF their Records and
Ambassadors, we must credit them with
unusual industry and resources. We no.
tics that they give good deal of atten.
ton to each other, after the manner OF
other esteemed contemporaries. If they
would prolong their lives, not to say
their usefulness, we suggest to the Rec
ord and the Ambassador that they pour
out into their columns the graces of mag
nanimity and gentleness, of which we
know the editors to be SO abundantly
stocked.
1t was sound and admirable advice
which Henry Ward Beecher gave to a
brother minister who had been asked to
candidate in another and "larger field:"
at Is far more to your name and infu-
ence to refuse call to than to accept
one." What the circumstances were are
not disclosed; but Mr.. Beecher states
what may be accepted as a general
principle. In nme cases out of ten "a
minister would gam more In both repu-
tation and influence by rejecting than by
accepting call. This, however, is what
not more than one minister in ten can be
made to believe.
1t is the error of not few public
teachers, to try to present, not what they
have been given to communicate to the
world, and what they may suppose the
world needs, but rather what they fancy
will strike the public as novel or pleas
ing. But the world does not need to be
pleased or amused. 1t needs to be bene-
fitted. 1t may be trusted to get suffi-
cient amusement and pleasure out Of
that which profits. Something of the
spirit of the old prophets is required Of
the public teacher. He should seek rath-
er to know what is true and what is for
the good of men, thsn.what is agreeable
to their preiudices or inclinations.
The words of truth, too, are the only
words of power. BY this we mean, not
alone absolute truth, reality, but SINGER
ity in him who speaks it. Influence, in
the long run, is the energy that resides
in sincerity. A sincere man in the wrong
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